Creating fake news for Kim dynasty

Chang Hae-seong, a former journalist for North Korea’s Central Television, speaks during an interview with The Korea Times at a café in Seoul, Tuesday. In 1996, he defected to South Korea to evade arrest from the security forces to save his life, after he shared classified information about the Kim family with one of his coworkers. / Korea Times

Defector recalls life as a journalist in the Hermit Kingdom

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Believe it or not, North Korean founder and dictator Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of current leader Kim Jong-un, is portrayed particularly by older North Koreans as a superhero.

According to them, the older Kim, who died of cardiac arrest in 1994, had the miraculous power to make bullets from sand dust, had the magical power to contract distances, and had crossed the Yalu River at the Chinese-North Korean border by riding on nothing but a withered leaf.

For decades, North Korea’s state-controlled media have produced what people now call “fake news” for the Kim dynasty.

Chang Hae-seong, a former journalist for the North’s Korean Central Television (KCTV) and now a defector living in Seoul, had been deeply involved in the Kim family’s plot to fool the North Korean public to ensure their stay in power.

In the North Korean media, Chang said, news stories are made, not covered. “While working as a reporter at the Division of Revolution I at the TV station, I dignified Kim Il-sung to elevate him to being the hero who saved the country,” he said during an interview at a cafe in Seoul on Aug. 22.

Chang, now 73, said he wrote his reports starting almost from scratch.

“I did research on Kim to find stories. If I found even a speck of something positive about him, I would exaggerate it to recreate a whole story to portray him as a great leader,” he said. “There were five divisions within the state TV, including the Division of Revolution I, and like me, reporters there were ordered to make and report stories about the Kim family to justify their policies.”

Chang joined the state media in 1976 after graduating from the Kim Il-sung University Department of Philosophy in the capital city of Pyongyang and worked there for 20 years.

In 1996, he defected to South Korea to evade arrest from the security forces to save his life, after he shared classified information about the Kim family with one of his coworkers.

Early on, he told his coworker that North Korea, not South Korea, was the aggressor of the Korean War (1950-53) and that Kim Il-sung’s son, Jong-il, was not born in North Korea but in Russia in 1941, when his father fought for Korea’s independence from Japan.

Chang discovered this “forbidden truth” through his rigorous research about the older Kim. His coworker unwittingly shared his remarks with other coworkers, which was detected by the security forces and put Chang’s life in peril.

Chang said his life as a journalist in North Korea was no different from that of South Korean reporters, except when it came to the professional practices he adopted. He unearthed issues and events about the political leader and reported his findings to meet the public’s right to know. However, unlike in the South Korean media, North Korean news is not based on fact.

KCTV, the only official TV news outlet, makes major public announcements, such as those of the death of Kim Il-sung in 1994 and of his son Jong-il in 2011, by the notable anchorwoman Ri Chun-hee.

Before her retirement as a news presenter in 2012, Ri had been the face of the state-controlled media for almost three decades, having delivered most major news announcements about the reclusive country. Her excessively emotional, often exuberant tone made her an object of ridicule among South Koreans.

According to Chang, Ri, a former theater actress, was the main news presenter there for such a long time mainly because Kim Jong-il had her back.

“Ri changed her career from a theater actress to a news presenter because she was unfit for the theater job,” said Chang. “Her lower body is shorter compared to her upper body. She was offered a news job at the state broadcaster because her face was still attractive.”

As the Kim Jong-il era unfolded following the death of his father in 1994, state intervention in the media underwent a remarkable change. Unlike his father, the younger Kim held a tighter grip on state media and demanded the broadcaster report every detail on its programs.

“His father didn’t care much about what programs to air. So during his day, state television had some discretion regarding what kinds of programs to air and how,” Chang said. “But his son Jong-il was very different. He never allowed KCTV to broadcast any programs without his prior approval. We submitted our detailed program schedules to him every Tuesday, and he himself would review every detail thoroughly and sent (the schedules) back to us with his comments and guidelines for us to follow.”

The younger Kim is who defined the current role of the state media — an ardent supporter of North Korea’s Communist Party and a faithful promoter of its policies.

According to Chang, North Korean state media’s current policy was established during the Kim Jong-il era. His son, Jong-un, has largely followed the guidelines set by his father.

While working with state TV, Chang was given access to information about South Korea. He monitored South Korea’s major newspapers every day to find issues that could be used in the North’s counterattacks of the South’s coverage of North Korea.

He did not feel any culture shock when he first read those Korean newspapers. His prior understanding of South Korean society, which he accumulated through years of secretly listening to news from South Korean media, had helped buffer the shock.

In the 1970s, Chang said some North Koreans already had access to news from South Korea’s KBS and Far Eastern Broadcasting Co., and he was one of the avid listeners.

“I was well aware of the ways of South Koreans even before I joined the state broadcasting company,” he said. “I was a curious person, eager to know what was going on in the South.”

Since he escaped from North Korea in 1996, the media environment of the reclusive country has changed a lot, thanks to an increase in impartial news from foreign media.

In the 2000s, some defectors worked together to provide fact-based news programs for North Koreans. Today North Koreans can secretly tune their radios to listen to news from any of the several radio stations that specialize in news for residents in the North.

Some North Koreans even secretly watch South Korean movies and dramas through CDs, DVDs and USB sticks on which they have been downloaded, and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), is supporting their cause. Starting next month, it will broadcast a 30-minute radio news program for North Koreans.

Chang said such impartial foreign news services and South Korean entertainment programs have led the North Korean public to question the credibility of their state media.

However, he was skeptical that the transmission of fact-based news would trigger a change in the North.

“Everybody knows North Korea is wrong and South Korea is right,” he said. “But we must know that believing is one thing and acting is another. As long as ‘fear politics’ continues, I think few North Koreans will be courageous enough to stand up against the repressive regime.”